Walter S

Sounds plausible. How do you think the legal questions will get resolved? Summed up by just saying who pays out in court when driverless cars kill people?

I-Like-To-Bike

An imaginative critical thinker might believe that this proves his theory on the insidious nature of the Automotive Conspiracy and the extensive reach of its tentacles into "The Culture."

Walter S

"roll"? Do you mean allow the car to drive itself down the road mixing with other drivers that happen to be present too?

tyrion

I have no idea. The legal landscape is harder to predict than technology progress.

Walter S

This article covers some ground on that topic with a blockchain approach where things get fought out in court based on sensor data captured by potentially multiple cars onsite. This is one of the few things I've read that has anything so specific as this... https://theconversation.com/whos-to-...accident-93132

Mobile 155

How long do you believe the programmers will need to work these things out after they work their way through the system? Do you perhaps have experience with writing code or working with AI? I may be old enough to remember the future as projected by Disney back in the 60s with flying cars. By now we would all have access to flying cars? Not long ago I saw they were tempting me again with a flying drone that would take me to work. https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/...ne-for-people/


I have to wonder just how long it will be before society is willing to allow non monitored cars or drones? Years ago I bought a auto pilot for my boat. I could plot different waypoints into the system and once engaged it would take the boat from Newport Beach to Kings Harbor then over to Catalina and then down to Dana Point. 15 years later you still aren't allowed to send one out into the ocean without a person on board with those waypoints plotted.


I know this puts me at odds with Tesla and I like Tesla.

rossiny

I think your on to something . The car dealers will have you by the neck.. any thing goes wrong you gonna need their technicians. Just think of the jobs and money programing these things. SCAREY..

Mobile 155

Reminds me of what VW did when it hacked its own computers to get better test results on their vehicles when hooked up to state testing systems. Cars with AI will make ABS and anti skid control look like child's play.

jon c. 

Yes. There are several concerns who have announced that they will and I think one of them will do it. Probably on a pretty limited basis, but on regular public roads in normal settings with the general public present but likely often not noticing. They need to do it and there's nothing really standing in the way.

I do think it's likely going to be a long way from that point to AVs revolutionizing transportation, but it does appear they're ready for the early step of running a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads without a driver/monitor in the vehicle.

I-Like-To-Bike

Can you name the concern(s) ready to run a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads without a driver/moniitor? Is this going to be a vehicle even remotely close to being a vehicle that could be manufactured and sold for a price that anybody would pay, or is it going to be a million dollar prototype that can only be driven on specially selected roads under favorable weather conditions with all testing data and results controlled and held tightly by the concern(s)? Unless, of course, some unfortunate member of the public is killed during the demonstration and the local police chief is unable to whitewash the accident in favor of the big pocket concern.

Mobile 155

jon c. 

I have no idea what the answers to all those questions are. Such things will be resolved in time and as I have no real stake in this I'm not concerned with how much time or what the resolution ultimately may be. This is not something I follow closely, but Waymo, GM and a few others have announced a desire to launch this year and I expect someone will make it. All the internet arguing points aren't especially relevant to that. The vehicles exist and have been tested enough to safely(probably) pull off a limited real world pilot program. Beyond that, I'll just watch and see what happens.

I-Like-To-Bike

As I suspected, you were just repeating the "desires" put out by the PR flacks for the usual suspects/concerns. I believe it will be very long wait before a working reliable autonomous car is ready to driven on public roads without human drivers/oversight.

IMO, it will be even a longer wait for any concern to come up with a business plan to profitably manufacture and sell these vehicles to the public or find any concern that can buy and use them in a profitable enterprise. The only real money that will be made will be from the IPO for the early speculators in the unicorn concerns and the early sellers in the Ponzi like schemes being sold to big pocket concerns in this field.

Walter S

It's a dead giveaway when all you can dig out of people is what they believe will happen instead of also knowing what that's based on.

Walter S

Excellent point because I've noticed something about ALL of the people that express excitement about this topic and now close it is to reality. The viability of the technology is ALWAYS discussed in terms of city infrastructure. Driving to rural america is not discussed. Anybody that projects a future where all the cars on the road are driverless needs to consider rural america. People have trucks and other utility vehicles that they regularly have to "drive" where there's nothing that looks like a road.

For example I lived out in the the country until about 15 years ago in a pretty sparse area. The roads were kind of rough and very poorly marked lines. Then you come to the driveway of my house. It was 1/3 mile of gravel up a steep winding hill that then loops around thru the woods upon reaching the house. Even under ideal weather conditions it will be a LONG time before you'll take a car without a steering wheel to a place like that. My driveway would also sometimes develop ruts and if I let that go on too long without resurfacing it then you end up with a few spots where you have to get off to the side of it etc. to avoid bottoming out the car and getting stuck. Think your driverless car will just look at the ruts and figure out how deep they are and what the best course across is like a human might? Think again.

But then wait till a snow storm hits and the driveway is frozen over. A human driver with some skill in conditions like that may get their car to the road and go to the store. A driverless car will behave like it's been dropped into a featureless world. Will the car simply remember where the driveway used to be and avoid getting stuck exiting the property as well as a skilled human familiar with the terrain? Of course not. The driveway is totally invisible even to the human and everything is white and it might look flat but if you head into it you'll quickly sink in and get stuck in a ditch or something. Will rural america just get used to it and decide to live within the limitations of what a driverless car can do for them? Of course not.

Driverless cars will exist before they can go to places like this but they won't replace human drivers and you won't be able to use the driverless car when you go visit grandma.

ironwood

I read somewhere that self driving cars are being attacked in Arizona. Modern day Luddites.

jon c. 

It's a dead giveaway of relative zealotry against the tech when you have to shift the basis of argument. The question we were discussing was will someone actually use them on public roads in the upcoming year. I think they will. Y'all keep introducing profit and rural roads and bad weather and a host of other issues. All valid concerns in the long term, but not particularly relevant to whether or not they'll get a pilot test in this year. The vehicles are capable of doing it and at the moment there is no actual legal bar in many states, so I think someone will do it. They need to for marketing reasons.

Beyond that, I don't know or really care how quickly they will or won't succeed. Everyone is not in a camp either for or against this tech. Some of us just watch what happens. You seem to have faith invested. I'm an agnostic.

tandempower

People living in rural areas have a lot to benefit from self-driving cars because it would give them more flexibility in taking trips without worrying about bringing their own vehicle with them. Long term parking at an airport is costly and how easy is it to find someone willing to drive you 50 - 100 miles to an airport (who then has to drive back)? Add to that the fact that you can get a much cheaper fare if you fly out of a bigger airport, then you might have to drive several hundred miles.

The other thing people seem to ignore about the self-driving feature is that it would allow cars to valet themselves in certain situations. So even if it was illegal to allow a self-driving vehicle to operate on public roads, there could be special parking areas, lanes, routes, etc. that are designated for self-driving, which are more rigorously tested and monitored to ensure the safety of autonomous vehicles operating there.

Self-driving cars isn't an all-or-nothing thing, but those who oppose it want to make it out that way because they want to totally suppress the public release of the technology and they think they can do that by mentioning a kid running out into the road to chase a ball every once in a while.

tyrion

Seems like a sensible proposal, at least from a technical perspective.

tyrion

Coming soon:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...rk/1834305002/

tyrion

If you're talking about the moral/ethical issues, they never get fully worked out. There are obvious maxims (e.g. protect people at the expense of property), but we've been driving for decades without deciding on a best answer to the Trolley Problem.

Legislation and legal cases will steer the ethics encoded in the system. For instance, can I buy a car that will favor a single occupant over 2 pedestrians? If not, what if I modify my car to favor a single occupant over 2 pedestrians? These need to be addressed by legislation.

(I'm a programmer, but not an AI expert.)

Maelochs

I had thought that AI cars had already on the road in I think Carson, Arizona in a limited test program, maybe operated by Waymo? (Whoops .... not Carson, Nevada ... Chandler, AZ, where a couple big tech firms have real estate.) ((https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...218-story.html)) ((Ford, Walmart Unveil AV Grocery Delivery Project -))

Waymo and Google and a few others have been running without driver attention (but with a driver) for quite a while. Waymo has a working taxi service---has for two years. The big problem is people who don't like the idea---not the execution, which so far has not be problematical. ((https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/w...ne-in-arizona/))

Sure, there are lots of places AVs are not ready to tackle---and sorry to use facts, but several places where they have been operating quite well in limited capacities, thank you.

But, no ... the huge investment everyone from auto manufacturers to software giants have made into AVs only proves they won't happen.

Like some others here, I don't see AV cars as the salvation nor the perdition of anything in particular. I am pretty sure they will be made to work eventually, and pretty much unconcerned either way. I own no stock in any AV company, and I don't see where AVs can do markedly worse than cars with human drivers ... but really, other than posting prejudiced screeds on BF, there is nothing any of us can do but watch and wait.

After all, if man were meant to fly, he'd have wings, right?

tyrion

Here's a moral dilemma:

A self-driving car is travelling down a road, and a small child runs into the street. The car can swerve left or right to avoid hitting the child. If it swerves left, it destroys an S-Works Venge. If it swerves right, it destroys a Waterford Paramount with Artisan stainless steel lugs.

Which way should is swerve? (should it swerve?)

wolfchild

What happens if a self-driving car is involved in a collision and kills somebody ?? Who gets charged ??...How do you charge software or a robot, what type of a sentence do you had out ??

I-Like-To-Bike

Is that "moral dilemma" considered funny or clever in your circle of LCF comrades?